No, youâll have to be a little smarter than that. Iâm convinced you can. I understand it must be hard for you to even imagine a benevolent interpretation of my agenda. But if you try to overcome the apparent contradiction and instead fantasize creatively (or should I say wildly), then what could it possibly be, whether true or not, if it has to be a benevolent interpretation?
Same message as two years ago? Yes, very much so. Repetition of things that have already been said? Yes, mostly. Do we have results-based categorization yet? No. Do I think weâll get there unless we frequently talk openly about it under the nose of Zwift? No. Do I think weâll ever get there by asking nicely and timidly? No.
Fact: I never saw a single thread asking for results-based categorization before I began to start such threads myself quite some time ago. And that includes the FB Zwift Riders and, at the time, the FB Zwift Racers forums (I got banned from the latter for discussing forbidden topics).
I realize it doesnât necessarily mean there were no such threads. Threads have a tendency to get deleted in here after a while. Spring cleaning, saving storage space, I suppose. But if any such threads existed, then they were extremely rare and didnât cause much activity (well, there really wasnât that much activity in here on the whole).
I also realize it doesnât mean I was the first to think such thoughts. On the contrary, wouldnât it be awfully depressing if no one else in here had had that thought before, when every other organized sport known to mankind has used results-based categorization one way or the other since⌠forever?
But Iâm not a fan of this revisionism concerning this forum. It was was very different here back in 2020, and even more so in 2019. Comparatively very little went on in here at all. And the racing sub forum was mostly about a completely different type and level of issues.
Do I think I have had an impact over the last couple of years? Yes. Do I think Iâm the only one? No, thereâs been a few. Do I think the forum would be what it is today if it werenât for those few (which, yes, includes me)? No. Am I fishing for recognition or cred? No lol. I just want zwifters to get fair racing and had to make a decision. Cred was never mentioned in the compensation package, if we put it that way.
There is another kind of revisionism thatâs pretty interesting. There is a more scientific term for it in cognitive psychology, but we can call it auto-revisionism, speaking of. See, I could give several names of people who frequently post here who used to oppose a results-based system but who no longer do. And I wouldnât be surprised if at least a few of them donât remember it like that at all. Is that a problem? No. What matters is where they stand today.
I donât know how many times I have openly advocated power metrics for initial seeding. I started doing that when they tested AutoKitten. Who knows, maybe if you scroll up a bit you just might find such a statement from me in this very thread?
Exactly. So apparently we arenât done yet.
Like I said above, I have. Itâs getting better, although there is still work to do for the missionaries. There are still souls to save. Especially over in Long Beach, CA.
âZwift are also looking at itâ? Hahaha! I bet they have looked at a lot of things throughout the years. What else can they do if we post about it here? The only other option is to avert their eyes (they probably do that too sometimes). But can you quote a single source indicating âlooking atâ means âintend to implementâ, ideally one that wasnât contradicted shortly afterwards in other communications? Giving something the stink eye isnât really looking at in my book. Iâm picky like that.
No, I partly agree. Itâs trickier now to intentionally cruise and for several reasons. One is the lack of transparency. For one, the old cats have been extremely transparent, which makes it easy to game them. The increased complexity to the model per se isnât necessarily a problem, but another reason why we will see less cruising is that it has become less âdemocraticâ. Before, anyone above cat D could cruise if they wanted to. With the new model only some will be able to. For them it wonât be hard, just for the others. But it really doesnât matter. Power metrics will always be exploitable. Itâs an unsound and counter-intuitive foundation to build categorizations on.
Or to put it plainly, itâs just wrong. You can try to âimproveâ it by applying more duct tape but it will still be broken and obsolete.
No, heaven forbid! But what other options have there been? (Depending on what you mean by approach - if you just meant that I refuse to become a single cat E defaitist, then sure, there is that option, in theory.)
I recall on the Adventure Riding Forum in the off-topic free for all, a question was posted:
If someone showed up suddenly from the 50âs, what would be the most difficult thing to explain to them.
I believe it was answer #43 that said Here in my pocket, I have a device with which I can access the entirety of human knowledge. I use it to look pictures of cats and argue with people I donât know.
@Andreas_Traff thatâs pretty much the long and the short of it. Zwift is a video game essentially operated by each personâs physical effort. It is always going to be flawed in some way due to the restrictions based on the game engine and ZHQâs lack of interest in going further than weâve seen thus far. Your continual efforts to educate us about how NONE of us know what weâre talking about have reached the point of Comic Opera. Letâs stop there before we end in Greek Tragic Opera.
No, I didnât read that last post and I donât intend to as it is truly TL;DR. Obviously you have lotsa time on your hands and/or you type very quickly and accurately. Personally, Iâm about 30 wpm and then Iâve got to proof it. You must be in the 80âs or so.
This is getting comedic. Itâs a game. A very basic one, at best.
It seems simple.
1. Sandbagging - Mostly fixed with new system 2. Flexible cat boundaries, further helps with cruising - Next 3. Physics - Vital 4. Ranking - Last
People will argue that ranking should come before game physics. I totally disagree. Accurate physics would dramatically improve all racing. Ranking is just the icing.
Ok, letâs see now, 1) Youâre basically equating me with some Crazy Cat Lady, 2) thereâs the âitâs just a gameâ argument (=thereâs nothing to discuss), 3) I have to stop or we will somehow end in tragedy (whatâs that, a threat?), 4) you donât intend to read what I write and make a point of pointing it out.
Take a step back and think about it, the decision to not even try to refute any of my arguments, plus the level or flavor of your own argumentation style⌠Like I said above, welcome to the Call of Duty forums. Mark the teenage bully? Come on⌠thatâs not you.
Besides, the standard low blow youâre resorting to too now, the various less curteous versions of âyou seem to have too much time on your hands, you should perhaps spend it more wiselyâ that get tossed around in here, they are absolutely hilarious! Please, throw them at me again! Because without exception, they are always coming from people who seem to hang around in here all day long, especially weekdays. I can write something short (it happens) or something long but it doesnât take many minutes to get a reply from the usual suspects. And they are littering the forum with one-liners all over the place. Your name implies you might be retired and itâs not for me to judge how you spend your days, but the others? Donât they have work to do? So⌠right back at ya.
No way. To me personally thatâs like saying until everyone in every outdoor road race in the world has access to the same expensive aero frames and special aero jersey fabrics, then itâs pointless to try run races with fair race rules. It seems completely backwards to me, if I got to prioritize.
HOWEVER, I donât see any problem in working in parallel on race rules and game physics. I donât see the conflict. Sure, resources matter in a company, but itâs likely not going to be the same persons within the company working on those two things anyway, provided they would at all. You donât need to touch the game engine to address the issues I bring up. You donât need C++ programmers to fix this, or even if you do then itâs still not going to be the same guys.
Also, Iâm not jumping into your physics thread, you know the one, saying âStop this farce! Results-based categorization must come before everything else!â. So why do you keep pointing out this imagined conflict? Itâs almost as if you were using Eric Min language. You know, âI donât want results-based categorization, over my dead body, but Iâm not going to admit it, so Iâll say itâs low priority instead and point my finger at something else.â I donât get it.
You might very well think that, I couldnât possibly comment.
âDonât take yourself so seriouslyâ is the message.
The only threat is that people will keep trolling you for a response, they know theyâll always get one.
You say the same thing over and over again in different words. Or in the words of Alan Partridge, âThat was just a noise.â
Basically, many people who originally supported your cause and felt the same way, have now been put off and donât really care, not because of Zwiftâs previously perceived apathy to address issues surrounding categorisation, but because many people now donât care because theyâre bored of the subject.
This is not true. I am now an A but for a long time was a B. I regularly raced in mixed category races and always tried to beat the As and will race as hard (but as smart) as possible. Most Zwift users do not draft effectively. I do. I won a mixed race where I did the lowest wkg of all the top ten As and top ten Bs (I did like 3.6, some As were north of 4.3). Nearly all of those riders were within a few kg of me as well. I never touch the front of the bunch and I work hard to maintain momentum coming into small rises and donât race very hilly races and as a result I can stay with the front pack even if they push a lot more watts than I do. I just got bumped to the As recently (lost some weight, ftp is now 4.001) and I raced an A only crit. I finished with the front group as usual doing less than anyone else. There is good drafting if you know how to use it and itâs clear not everyone does. See attached image. 4th place doing the fewest raw watts and lowest wkg of the front 8. (Number 9 was dropped.)
Whoa yeah, same reaction as above poster. The Zwift pack and draft is very much not like real world racing and Iâm certain some trainers make it more difficult as well. Iâve been an A my entire time on Zwift and race road and track at cat 1/2 IRL. Getting Zwift drafting right is not easy. I still have real problems with it where Iâm absolutely expending significantly more energy than if I could get the drafting right.
Mhm⌠Iâm that guy over in the corner debating the exact time table London-Leeds in 1968 over a club soda, together with you.
I must really get to you since itâs the first time anywhere on the forum I see you getting lost in the personal completely, losing track of the actual discussion, or maybe just blatantly ignoring it, but still insisting on making little contributions to the thread.
Umm⌠I get your point. I was discussing purely in theory. In theory itâs not a problem to have different departments or teams working on different projects in a company. Although mileage may vary. Regardless, like I said, you donât see me shooting down the physics thread, from the inside. I think the physics is a highly valid and important discussion, although a completely different one. (One where there is no reason for me to participate at all since others are already doing a fine job at pointing out the issues to Zwift, loudly so, hence I stay clear of it.)
No, the message was the standard sudden turn-the-table argument âdonât take the game too seriouslyâ. A debate trick as old as the Bible and kind of funny in the context since almost everyone in this thread seems to be deeply invested in Zwift. We all knew that already.
Although who the tragedy is can be debated. It will show in the long run. Letâs get back to this discussion much later on. I may decide to remind you after all, just for fun.
Maybe you shouldnât underestimate my motives. Maybe I know exactly what Iâm doing. Who could tell? Time will tell.
Itâs working so far. Why would I stop? You guys are slow turners is all. Besides, you never supported my cause, Tim, you were always in opposition. And Iâm NOT kicking in open doors in this thread. Still not. Obviously not. I wouldnât be surprised if you deep down still believe you are at a disadvantage being heavy. Others go âyeah yeah BUTâŚâ There is always that BUT, still. BUT we should stick to the new model for now. BUT it would be better to drop categories altogether or maybe even drop racing. BUT BUT BUTâŚ
There is no BUT, says Yoda. There is only do. And the time for that is NOW, not later, someday.
A return to actual discussion (although off topic). Nice.
I argue it is true. Itâs not very hard to figure out what you need to do to be more efficient. Zwift is a computer game with physical input, like most games, only it engages the large motor muscles in a way that is unique. But as a game it is pretty simple to figure out.
By contrast, stupid and contrived example coming up, as a⌠game enthusiast, many years ago I somehow ended up in a really nerdy niche community on the interwebz, a WWII combat flight sim. It was rather fun although I was quite out of my depths with over half the people I was âflyingâ with having real flight certs, two of them even former fighter pilots with participation in Desert Storm and whatnot. Flight physics, engine management, and the John Boyd doctrine, all at the same time. That game was hard for real. But it was still all about physical input (plus a bit of sensory and cognitive overload), although as opposed to Zwift it required no physical strength just as a professional violinist doesnât really get winded from playing a concert even though it is #%&$ hard (I played for a bit in my youth - be grateful that I stopped).
As I see it there are only three things about drafting in Zwift that are a little tricky. No news below (I told you it was simple), but the first is the fact that you can ride straight through other riders, which causes these rather unnatural wave forms in a group. The ones who just ended up at the front donât want to pull or are unable to up the Watts sufficiently to maintain current speed. All those behind thus have greater speed and will tend to overtake - straight through the front guys. Rinse repeat. And you donât want to be in either category (front or overtakers), plus you want to keep your Watts as even as possible, which has become somewhat harder with the new pack model. Staying in draft while dodging the wave.
Second, we canât control the shape of the group. Zwift does that for us. We all know that too. For example, you generally donât want to be in those âwaistsâ that tend to appear naturally in a, what is it, 10+ group, but you still canât really do anything about the shape of it, and manipulating the logics of the pack dynamics to squeeze yourself into a better spot is not quite as easy as it would seem seeing as you can ride straight through others. If the good spots are currently occupied, you need to wait and steal them when someone screws up later. Itâs like riding the spring classics while the roads deceptively look like the UAE Tour. Everyone nods. No news.
Third, what you see is not necessarily what you get. We all know the graphics engine was never designed for racing and doesnât quite show what is really going on, it was never on the spec sheet, so today our on-screen cues are often off. A really old and silly example is when everyone hammers the turns (we do) because it looks like youâre falling behind. You donât, but since everyone brings out the hammer, you do. I imagine this third point may not come naturally to someone who has no history with online computer games, but to those who have you come to realize quite quickly this is how things work (i.e. not very well by comparison). Zwift feels like playing online games over a dialup modem back in the late 90âs.
Other than that itâs mostly try to stay closely behind several others to maximize draft while not so many that you canât respond well to movements closer to the front or that you end up behind one of those waists, one that snaps.
It isnât rocket science. But itâs just such a cheap counter- or high horses argument when the new guy posts something about having a hard time getting good results in races. âDraft better, noob!â As if it was that simple.
Donât get me wrong. I agree it can be hard to perfect drafting because the game engine really doesnât help you much (as opposed to games like CS or similar where the screen cues work and your inputs result in predictable outputs). But itâs the same for all in that regard. Understanding drafting, what you need to do and what you want to happen on the screen, really isnât very hard.
I donât deny that superior drafting could explain success in a race. I do argue, however, that it is a relatively rare thing when drafting skills is the deciding factor at the front of a race, where a race is won. It does happen and is often apparent in the ZP results. But there are, after all, other factors influencing race results as well, as we all know.
Also, another point is that excellent (or lucky) drafting has diminishing returns the lower you go in categories. And now we actually touch on the original topic again, although vaguely:
Do you find that drafting skills among competitors increase the higher you move up in category? Donât forget that there is more than one explanation to that.
A guy with a great aerobic capacity isnât automatically a âgamerâ who plays the mechanics of the game like a violin, far from (I watch races sometimes). And since it unfortunately still isnât success in races that moves you from one category to the next, there is nothing funneling drafting skills upwards in the cat system, except maybe that cat A racers might race more often and/or take the races more seriously and thus pay more attention to detail.
No, there is another factor at play here too that we shouldnât forget. You can be an ace drafter in cat C but the problem is that there is no end to various forms of competition down there, people who pose a threat through other competitive advantages than drafting.
Just as one example, in cat C you are quite likely to be matched against a heavier rider who isnât drafting as well as you and who doesnât have to. But that example doesnât apply to cat A and that is not because of drafting but because of weight, which isnât a relative advantage in cat A but is in cat C. Yeah, but what if you were in cat C and managed to draft well and were on the heavier side, wouldnât that be an advantage? Sure, but then youâre adding the âand weightâ to the equation. Itâs the poopy performance ceilings messing things up AGAIN. They need to go. Or these presumed drafting skills will never quite shine.